A Cappella

I wrote this at the end of my son’s senior year of college, five months after my husband’s passing.

Towering foursquare blocks of lectures and
learning climb against the night
sky echoing a year’s last songs of laughter,
youth swaying in grass skirts, leis,
paper bras strung on rippled chests,
four years fresh and launching outward, free
and coupled and future-bound.

I walk this dark and stairstepped hill alone tonight
as four years of ghosts surge round me:
children climbing from our arms into lives
and work they choose,
parents climbing to empty nests and lives to fill,
grandparents climbing slowly,
turning to bless before their final step.

You did not climb this hill,
did not join the crowds of parents
and children on first and last journeys.
Our son began his climb as you journeyed supine,
your spirit walking with me.
I knew then:
this would be four years’ solitary climb.
You rose long enough to deposit him
with his fellows, then sank
and did not rise again.

Tonight is the last climb for me.
I turn and gaze at the lighted hall
where you did not hear your engineer son sing,
did not see his classmates cheer
and pound his back, did not see him
and his girlfriend snuggle beside me
between sets, did not see him
mobbed by friends and fans after the show.
Did not see him…
in the body at least.

I square shoulders, set foot on stairs,
walk each step slowly to the lot where
the night sky meets me like a cloak.
Stars piercing the clouds now,
the new moon hiding her face.
I turn my face to the sky, reaching for you,
your inner voice, your chill touch to warm
my heart, your nod. “We’ve done
our job,” I whisper. A breeze ruffles my hair,
falls silent.